Trying to Hold on
by Dementia777
Summary: Have you ever noticed that preserving that which is beautiful is a task that eventually and inevitably will lose it's novelty?  Have you ever realized that the more you try to keep something important in your grasp, the more it will seem to slip away?


This is inspired by Paper Wings by Rise Against

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"Yumichika?" Ikkaku asked, but he soon realized that he could have been talking to empty air and have the same result. His love had a long time ago began to withdrawal from him.

The first instance, Ikkaku didn't think he'd ever remember. Yumichika was full of quirks and unpredictable, impulsive behavior. Even if he wasn't, as a typical member of Squad Eleven, Ikkaku had almost no interest in details and wouldn't have noticed anything strange in the first place.

Now he wishes he'd paid more attention.

Was it going downhill for longer than he'd realized?

Was his love finally tired of how inconsiderate he could be?

After a long pause, the beautiful man frowned and looked to the small window, with distant and misty eyes. They were in the room they'd shared for a nameless amount of time, and Yumichika was fond of staring out into space whenever he'd gotten upset over something.

"Ikkaku. Did you know there was a secret I've been keeping for a while?"

"A secret?" Ikkaku feared the worse. An affair, maybe.

"It makes me worry. Do you have secrets kept from me, as well?"

What a hypocrite, Ikkaku thought. He's keeping secrets and accusing others of doing the same. "Of course not, what the hell would I have to say that you wouldn't be able to listen to?"

Yumichika shrugged. He may have wanted to cry, or yell, or simply go back to sleep. The poker face that he wore when he was bothered, even Ikkaku couldn't read yet. After all the years they'd spent together, he hardly knew the man he said he loved.

"For all the time I say that I've loved you, isn't it strange that I'm still afraid of you?"

"Afraid of me?"

"Yes. What would you do if I left?"

"Chase you."

"If I cried?"

"Hold you."

"If I yelled?"

"Kiss you."

"What would I do if you did those things?" Yumichika asked, though it wasn't directed anywhere. "Isn't love two beings coming together?"

"Are you saying you don't love me?"

"That's ridiculous. I love you. I just," he hesitated. "I just can't think all that well. I'm afraid of falling and you not wanting to catch me any longer. We both want each other for the same reasons, love of who we think the other is, but you don't quite know me as well as I do you."

This was a typical morning with Yumichika, melancholy and vague phrases. This was the most he'd revealed about why he was upset in so long, Ikkaku was drinking up every word to figure out what was wrong.

"This is so stupid, so ugly," Yumichika shook his head.

"Yumichika, tell me why you're upset. Did I do something to make you angry?"

"It's the other way around. Or at least, if I told you everything it would be."

"Did you," Ikkaku hesitated. If he asked what he was about to, and was wrong, there wouldn't be any recovery. Yumichika would be insulted and going back from something like that just didn't happen, not easily at least. "Is there someone else that you-"

"No, I haven't cheated on you," Yumichika said, understanding the implications. "It's just, I don't want you to ever dislike me."

"Why would I-"

"You are so much like Captain Zaraki. Has anyone told you that, besides me?"

"Not really."

"Captain has an unwritten rule. Maybe the most important of all the rules in our division. You believe in the rule wholeheartedly."

"Yumichika, I'm not playing guess and check here. Tell me whatever the hell you need to tell me, alright?"

"My zanpukto is a kido type."

"What?"

"I don't want you to think that I'm a coward-"

"Fuck, it's too late for that,"

"I had figured as much."

"A kido type zanpakuto. I was starting to think you did something really stupid. I don't like that your sword isn't a sword you can fight with and not use a bunch of fucking tricks, but what I dislike more than that is you being too much of a coward to come out and say it, and whoever didn't like it could go fuck themselves. What Captain said was right, people with kido type _are _cowards."

Yumichika looked down. Ikkaku would've been angry with him over the zanpukto whether his attitude was confident or if he'd tried to hide it forever, regardless. That wasn't why he was becoming especially withdrawn, though.

Neither of them loved each other, he knew. His zanpakuto may be the biggest secret that he kept from his love, but it certainly wasn't the only thing he could tell about himself that would upset Ikkaku. They only loved what they thought the other to be. He couldn't continue living in an illusion.

"Should I leave?"

"Don't be an idiot," Ikkaku quickly replied. "So, you didn't tell me about your Shikai. Forget about it."

He'd like to.

"I'm not going to sit around forever with you keeping to yourself stupidly, though."

If only he would enforce that, Yumichika would maybe try to open up.

"Just tell me why you can't talk to me."

A flower that had yet to bud is what he considered himself to be. Beautiful and matured on the inside, a late bloom not ready for light to shine upon which it hides.

Yumichika shook his head. "It's nothing that can be fixed."

"Because you don't want to try."

"I already know the outcome. I'm going to crash and burn, and you're going to walk away hardly scathed. I mean something to you only because you do not know me, and I know only as much as you want me to about you."

"You're just going on like an idiot."

"I'm telling the truth here, nothing more or less. There is no happiness between us anymore, no trust."

Ikkaku, as much as he saw the blaring truth behind everything the beauty was saying, couldn't let him go. Couldn't admit what he should.

The tighter he tried to hold, though, the more it seemed to slip away.

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End file.
